Technical Field
The invention relates to a memory storage device, and more particularly, relates to a memory management method, and a memory storage device and a memory control circuit unit using the memory management method.
Description of Related Art
The markets of digital cameras, cellular phones, and MP3 players have expanded rapidly in recent years, resulting in escalated demand for storage media by consumers. The characteristics of data non-volatility, low power consumption, and compact size make a rewritable non-volatile memory module (e.g., flash memory) ideal to be built in the portable multi-media devices as cited above.
Generally, a memory storage device including a rewritable non-volatile memory module releases available physical blocks by executing a garbage collection procedure. However, the traditional garbage collection procedure does not take in consideration of whether data stored in a physical block is updated regularly. In case the data stored in a physical block is updated regularly, even if valid data stored in the physical block is moved to another physical block during the garbage collection procedure, it is still possible that the valid data is considered as invalid after being updated again, resulting in waste of system resources.
Nothing herein should be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art of any portion of the present invention. Furthermore, citation or identification of any document in this application is not an admission that such document is available as prior art to the present invention, or that any reference forms a part of the common general knowledge in the art.